


Fallen Knight

by Aerumna



Series: Desxime [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23098600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerumna/pseuds/Aerumna
Summary: A story about a fallen Jedi who turns her back on the Order and Republic.
Series: Desxime [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660234
Kudos: 1





	Fallen Knight

“You must focus, young one. You won’t learn staring off at the clouds.” The gentle voice broke Des’ reverie. She turned away from the view over Coruscant and looked at the Ithorian Jedi. “Sorry, Master, but it’s just so dull! Why am I sitting here staring at stupid rocks?” The old Jedi shook his head with what passed for a small smile with his species’ dual mouths. “You’re not supposed to just ‘stare at the stupid rocks’ youngling. You’re supposed to feel the stupid rocks, touch them through the Force. In this way, you will learn more about them than you can by staring at them.” 

Des sighed and plopped down on the grass in front of the large alien before absently grabbing one of her braids and chewing on it. With a furrowed brow, She focused on the small pile of pebbles stacked between them. Master Kruun cleared his throat, “Relax youngling. Let go of your Desire to run and play and open yourself to the Force.” Des caught herself before She could pout and tried to clear her mind of the visions of running though the grass and feeling the sun on her face. Eventually, She began to feel the grass under her bare feet, the minute eddies in the breeze blowing through the garden, the small colony of ants constantly digging and searching for food, and even the pebbles. She narrowed her focus to the pebbles only, going deeper until even the infinitesimal spaces between the molecules making up the pebbles seemed vast beyond imagination. She began to notice things about the pebbles, the part they played in the grand cosmos, how they were connected to everything. “Yes, youngling, now you see,” Master Kruun said softly, “Now try and move the pebbles.” Des reached out with her hand to pick the pebbles up but stopped when the Ithorian spoke again. “Not like that. Use the Force. You can see how you are connected to the pebbles. They are part of you, and you of them. Move them as if you were moving your own arm. Don’t think about it, simply do it.” 

The pebbles began to rise into the air as beads of sweat broke out on the little girl’s forehead. The Jedi Master nodded his head, encouraging her to continue. A smile broke out on Des’ lips as the pebbles began to move in a circle, gaining speed. The simple circle became a pattern, gaining complexity as the youngling became more confident. Master Kruun chuckled as the pebbles began to chase each other around the student and Master, zipping back and forth as if playing the human game of tag. As Des became bored with the game, as children tend to do, the pebbles seemed to swirl together and settle back into a neat pile on their own. With a cry of joy and glee, the small child hurled herself at the old Jedi, laughing and hugging him tightly. Master Kruun, not understanding but used to the tempestuous child’s antics, hugged her back lightly. You have done well, Desxime, very well indeed! I think that will be all for today, run along and find your friends. Remember the lesson you have learned, how everything is connected through the Force. With this knowledge, you can understand things in a way that most people couldn’t begin to imagine.” Des nodded her head, absently chewing on a braid while thinking about what the Ithorian said. “I’ll remember Master.” As She looked up at the gentle alien, She impulsively hugged him again before running off to find her fellow younglings, leaving the Jedi to watch her run off, shaking his head in perplexity. 

********************

Jedi Knight Acoz’Tuli surveyed the sparring field, his red eyes taking in every detail of the various students practicing with their training sabers. As he stood there, he felt a familiar presence approach quietly. He was always amazed at how silently his old friend could move, given his massive size. “Looking for your next Padawan my friend?” Never taking his eyes off the initiates as they fought back and forth, Acoz’Tuli nodded, “Yes Master, I think it’s high time I got off my shebs and pitched in a bit.” Master Kruun didn’t miss a beat in correcting his old student, “Language, old friend. There are young ears about.”

Acoz’Tuli smiled as he remembered how often he would have to sit through Master Kruun’s lectures about the vice of swearing and how it makes one look uncultured. “My apologies, old friend. Some habits are hard to break. But since you seem to want to give advice so freely, do you have any recommendations for me?” he said, gesturing to the students. “I do, actually. I have one that has been as befuddling and irascible as you were. I think it would be somewhat poetic for you to take her as a Padawan.”  
The only sign of Acoz’Tuli’s mirth was a slight quiver of his leku, “Let me guess, the fiery-haired one facing three at once?” His gaze moved to the initiate in question, who was fending off three other students, looking equally as exhausted as her opponents. As the Jedi watched, a small patch of dust flew up, seemingly on it’s own, straight into the face of one of the three, filling their eyes and mouth with dirt and blinding them. With a fierce cry, the red-haired student launched herself at the impaired foe, knocking their practice blade out of their hands and into the air. She made a beckoning motion with her free hand and the errant blade flew down. As soon as she snatched it out of the air, she seemed to gain a second wind, and tore into the two remaining students, who seeing her armed thusly, had tried to escape. Before they knew it, she was on them, her blades seeming to be everywhere at once, finding every hole in their defenses, scoring hit after hit.

“ENOUGH!” Master Kruun barked. Acoz’Tuli stared in astonishment, having never heard his mentor use that tone before. The fiery initiate stopped her attack immediately, although she looked less than pleased to do so. As the students got to their feet, some slower than others, Acoz’Tuli observed that while they had been hit multiple times, the attacker had pulled all of her attacks so as to cause no lasting harm, merely bumps and bruises. He looked closer at the girl, noticing the way she held her twin practice sabers as if they were a part of her, not weapons, merely extensions of her own body. He stood silently observant as she meekly walked towards Master Kruun, head hanging sheepishly. “The Jedi Master whispered out of one of his mouths to his old student, “Forgive the brusque tone, but it’s the only one she’ll listen to once she slips into her battle frenzy. We have tried to break her of it, to no avail.”

“Initiate, what have I told you time and time again?” the giant Ithorian asked her sternly. The young girl kept her gaze on her own feet, refusing to meet the Master’s eyes but answered sullenly, “You tell me to control myself. That I must ignore my impulses.” She shuffled her feet, seeming to become more irritated as she picked up momentum, her voice rising in volume. “Control yourself! Don’t let your emotions take over! Stay calm! I’m sick of being calm, I’m sick of holding back, and I’m sick of you!” She finished her outburst with a scream and threw the practice blades onto the ground at Master Kruun’s feet before stalking away. Master Kruun merely sighed and nodded his head when Acoz’Tuli asked, “May I?”

The Initiate froze as a pair of practice sabers hit her squarely in the back. She spun around to see who dared insult her in such a way. She looked at the Twi’lek Jedi standing there with a single practice blade, somehow staring at her with both calmness and intensity. He motioned to the blades at her feet, then made a “come and get it” motion with his free hand. When she didn’t pick them up right away, he set his blade on the ground in front of him and again motioned for her to attack. She leaned down and picked the blades up and looked at the strange Jedi again. He merely rolled his eyes and chuckled. If he had meant to infuriate her, he succeeded. Throwing all caution to the wind, she charged, a wild battle cry tearing from her throat. The Jedi didn’t move, just stood there, hands serenely behind his back. As she closed the distance, she swung both blades sideways, which the Twi’lek dodged easily by simply leaning back. The casualness in which he reacted to her attack only increased her fury. She forgot everything she knew about saber combat, she only knew she wanted to wipe that smug look off his bright red face. He easily dodged or parried her attacks using only his feet and shoulders, his hands never once leaving their spot behind his back. Growing tired of his game, the initiate screamed, “Grab your blade and fight me, you coward!”

The entire practice ground was silent as a tomb. The Twi’lek merely shrugged and reached for his saber. As soon as he moved towards it, she attacked, attempting to catch him off guard. Faster than thought, the blade jumped into his hand and began to dance, weaving between her blades time and again to gently score hit after hit after hit. As the student began to fight more desperately, the Jedi decided it was time to end this charade. With one fluid movement, he knocked both of her blades to the side before following up with an elbow to the side of her head. The initiate had only a quick moment to be amazed before slipping into darkness.

The girl dreamed. She dreamed of fire. She dreamed of pain. She dreamed of anguish. She dreamed of death. She was afraid and horrified. She watched buildings and people burn. She was shocked to wakefulness as a bucket of ice cold water was thrown on her. She sat up screaming, her mind still reeling from her dream. Red eyes locked onto hers, and hands calloused by hard work handling a lightsaber hilt cupped her face. The eyes stared at her, mixing calm and intensity. Eventually, those eyes brought her to the present. She sat there on the ground of the practice field, dripping wet and trying to gather her thoughts when the voice belonging to those damned eyes said, “What is your name, Initiate?” She tore her gaze away from the eyes to see the Twi’lek who had beaten her so easily kneeling in front of her. “Desxime, Master.” 

“Desxime, huh? Okay then, Desxime, your my new Padawan. I can see you are stubborn, excitable, have no control over your emotions, and a general pain in the shebs, but I can remedy all of that. Go back to your quarters, pack your belongings, put your hair in a padawan braid, and meet me in my quarters.” As the girl left to follow his instructions, he called her back, “Oh, and Padawan? Unless you want the next few years to be very rough, I would reassess your reasons for becoming a Jedi. Now get moving.”

****************************

Desxime held the small gem up to the light beaming in through the window of her small dwelling on Dantooine. She carefully placed the gem next to it’s twin on a soft cloth. She then looked over the various components laid out in front of her. The power assembly was finished. She had finally gotten the dimensions of the vortex ring correct and it had fit perfectly. The emitter was within tolerance, and the outer casing had been wired correctly, to include the bio-metric feed that would prevent anyone but herself from activating it. All that was left was the focusing crystal. After searching for months in the multitude of caves around the area, she had finally found two crystals that were matched precisely, clear as the finest Corellian glass. As she mentally checked off each component and placed them just so on the worktable, she began to think ahead to what she had to accomplish. Tonight would be the final challenge to her becoming a Jedi Knight. She had passed many trials to get to this point, learning to control her emotions, strengthening her connection to the force, becoming an expert fencer (with practice sabers, since Master Acoz’Tuli wouldn’t let her use any lightsaber other than one she made herself, in accordance with the old ways. This was it. She realized that she was procrastinating, but couldn’t understand why. This is what she had wanted for years. Then it hit her. She was afraid. Very afraid. Not of what having a lightsaber meant, but that she might fail at creating one. She knew that she didn’t have her emotions under control, not really. They were always there, just under the surface, wanting to break free. Everyone knew that only a Jedi that was fully attuned with the force could complete the ritual that would change the color of her focusing crystals and allow her to finish her lightsaber. With a deep breath, she stood up and wrapped the crystals in a soft cloth before placing them in a hardened pouch. Until the ceremony was complete, they were as fragile as the thinnest Alderaanian ceramic, and would shatter. With one more breath to center herself, she left her hut and began the walk to the cave.

Master Acoz’Tuli was in his usual place in front of a small fire when Des arrived. She knelt down in front of him to wait until his meditations were complete. As she ran through the forthcoming ritual in her head, she suddenly felt a slight shift in the force. Faster than the blink of an eye, she rolled to the side and drew her practice blade just in time to block Acoz’Tuli’s follow-up strike. He smiled at her and bowed as he used the stick in his hand to poke at the low-burning fire. “You have learned to listen and trust in the Force and your own instincts, Des. Keep doing that, it’ll serve you well as you continue on as a Jedi Knight. No, don’t say anything. You have brought the crystals?” Des nodded. “Good. Now, enter the cave. You’ll know what to do.” With those words, he resumed his place at the fire. Des knew she would get nothing more out of him, so she shrugged and walked into the darkness of the cave.

It seemed as if hours had passed. Des had been walking, turning down whichever branch of the tunnel that struck her fancy. She wasn’t sure she would be able to find her way back out once the ritual was complete. Eventually, she wandered into a brightly-lit tunnel. The walls were covered in crystals. At the very center sat a large chunk of crystal that looked as if it had been carved by the hands of sentient beings into a altar. She had found the right place, she knew it in her bones. She knelt in front of the altar and rested her hands, each holding a crystal on the top. She closed her eyes and began to meditate. She let her thoughts come and go as they would, acknowledging each one, but never focusing on them. In this way, the Force showed her the truth about herself, the light and the dark, the petty and the noble. Every accomplishment was followed by failure. For every time she helped or healed, she saw when she destroyed or harmed. She felt the crystals in her hands begin to heat up. They began to emanate a soft glow that, along with the heat, grew in intensity until she thought her eyes and hands would be burned to a crisp. As the pain increased, so did the visions. Each successive one was more noble, more horrible than the previous one. Just as she felt her resolve begin to break, the visions stopped, along with the light and heat. She opened her eyes and looked down into her open palms. Two pink crystals lay there. As she stared in wonder, each crystal began to pulse with a darkness, almost an absence of light. The darkness was in the heart of each crystal, but was contained by the soft pink around it. A sudden inspiration overtook her, and she struck the crystals against the altar. They rang with a clear, clarion note. As she held them and listened to the sound, a deeper sound accompanied the high, underscoring and grounding it. Tears sprang to her eyes as she understood what it meant. She quickly stashed the crystals in her pouch and sprinted back through the cave. She never understood how she found her way out, but unerringly, she ran straight to the entrance, to find Master Acoz’Tuli waiting with a smile. He said nothing, merely draped an arm over her shoulders and walked back to the small homestead they shared. Outside of her hut, he motioned for her to enter and walked to his own dwelling.

Des entered the dwelling to find everything as she left it. She assumed her meditation position and placed the two crystals in their proper place on the table. She began to concentrate on each piece in turn, letting the Force guide her as she pieced them all together. As she gently placed the crystals in their chambers, she felt a deep hum from all around her. She stood up slowly and activated the twin sabers. Each beam erupted with a sharp crack, the smell of ozone biting her nose. The blades were of the blackest black, contained within a soft pink light that lit the inside of the hut. After a few practice swings, she realized that the lightsabers were even more attuned to her than she had hoped. With a huge grin and a sense of pride and accomplishment, she deactivated the blades and lay down on her cot, falling into a deep slumber.


End file.
